This Temporary Tattoo Can Unlock Your Phone

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I’d think this was just a clever April Fools’ joke, if it weren’t the middle of July.

Motorola has teamed up with a company called VivaLnk to make a temporary tattoo that can unlock a smartphone, no PIN required. Slap it on your skin, hold your phone up to it, and bam — phone unlocked.

Who needs gestural passwords or face recognition when you can unlock your phone like a time-traveling space wizard?

So how does it work? It’s an ultra-thin NFC circuit, wrapped up in medical-grade 3M adhesive that won’t (or, at least, shouldn’t) freak out your skin.

A 10 pack of tattoos will set you back $10 bucks. Motorola says these things should stand up to swimming and other exercise and should last for up to five days — so that 10 pack would optimally last you a bit over a month and a half.

Before you go and order a pack, there’s one catch: these tattoos only work with the Motorola X right now (because nothing helps test a wacky niche product concept like severely limiting the potential customer base). If you’ve got any other Android phone, you’re stuck unlocking your phone manually like a chump.

(Alas, while the video above suggests they threw some pretty serious design efforts in here, the tattoo ends up looking a bit like a mole you’d want to have someone check.)

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CrunchBase

OverviewVivaLnk’s breakthrough eSkin™ technology has made it possible for us to create thin, flexible electronics that are adhesive, inexpensive, and disposable, and can communicate with smartphones and tablets.
We envision a future where our technology has been adapted to countless applications, including thousands of yet-to-be-imagined uses in the hands of people around the world.

OverviewMotorola Solutions, Inc. (NYSE: MSI) is a data communications and telecommunications equipment provider that succeeded Motorola Inc. following the spin-off of the mobile phones division into Motorola Mobility Holdings, Inc. in 2011. The company is headquartered in Schaumburg, Illinois, a Chicago suburb.
Motorola Solutions is composed of the Enterprise Mobility Solutions division of the former Motorola, …